While the Nittany Lions cleared up several cloudy areas (ahem, QB play) in the season opener, presumed no-brainer positions of strength (OL, RB) raised a few eyebrows…and not in a good way.

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BOX SCORE               FTB CHARTING

Huzzah! The permed-hair prince who was promised!

On the Beaver Stadium scoreboard, Drew Allar is announced as the starting QB vs. West Virginia … 26 minutes before kickoff pic.twitter.com/hA0fr1RM2S

— Mike Poorman (@PSUPoorman) September 2, 2023

At approximately 7:05 p.m., a PA announcer no one apparently likes (poor guy) finally revealed the best-kept secret since up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start Button to the largest college football crowd found anywhere last Saturday (check ya math, Michigan).

From the settled dust of a fierce competition rivaling historic heated tilts like Hammer v. Nail and Obese Man v. Buffet, Penn State sophomore Drew Allar emerged victorious, edging out heel-nippers Beau Pribula and Jaxon Smolik for the starting QB role.

And for all the eye rolls and “come on’s” hurled James Franklin’s direction over the course of the past 5 weeks, perhaps the head coach’s decision to hide his cards and not show his hand until NBC was halfway through the clunkiest pregame show in the history of television was a shrewd, tactical, ingenious ploy.

Because, man, West Virginia looked completely unprepared for Allar’s coronation, didn’t it?

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• Nothing distorts reality more than the veil of great expectations. Was Penn State polished in every aspect this evening? Obviously not. Tackling was hit-and-miss. The kicking game was laughable (if you didn’t have money on the first-half spread, that is). The offensive line failed to maul one of the worst defenses in the Big XII. Receivers dropped a few gimmes. And the linebackers and defensive ends – a supposed strength of this squad – were underwhelming. But, does a 3+TD victory margin justify the waves of digital Chicken Littles spouting prophecies of doom and gloom across message boards and Twitter? IDK maybe.

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Country Roads – plus a late-season AD change and a Teflon $16.7 million buyout – took/kept WVU HC Neal Brown home to the place he probably doesn’t belong for a make-or-break (likely break) final stand. 

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Underneath the iconic roof of a $1.3 billion architectural marvel, seated behind a plastic folding table you can buy for 50 bucks from The Home Depot, West Virginia head coach Neal Brown – fresh off a family beach vacation – drew a strategically-placed, carefully-calculated line in the sand.

I’ll say this at the front,” Brown told the hundred or so sportswriters/Marriott Rewards Point stashers inside Jerry World who picked the Mountaineers to finish last in the conference at Big XII media days back in July. “Appreciate what you all do as far as covering college football and making it one of the top, um, really, sports, in, in, that’s out there.”

After fattening up these figurative hogs with a trough full of pleasantries, Brown began leading them to the verbal slaughter.

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While the Penn State offensive line took several strides in the right direction last season, advanced run game metrics show the journey toward elite status is far from over.

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If you’ve been down on your luck and forced to eat Alpo for a month, Oscar Meyer suddenly tastes like dry-aged prime rib (don’t ask me how I know this).

If you’ve been forced to ride the bus to work, sardined between a sweaty, ripe construction worker and those flimsy, hard-to-trust mid-cabin folding doors, a ride in a 1996 Plymouth Breeze feels like cruising in a Bentley.

And, heaven forbid, if your kid’s relentless travel ball schedule monopolizes your summer, a work weekend spent alone at the Cedar Rapids Airport Econolodge might as well be a vacation in Maui.

In other words, it’s all about perception and context…which might help us explain why many Penn State followers (include us) are so giddy about the current state of the Nittany Lions offensive line. And, frankly, why the heck shouldn’t we be?

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